The present invention relates to a computer network and more particularly to a mechanism for automatically arranging cache sites whose setting positions have heretofore been determined manually.
A data transfer amount has heretofore been reduced by manually assigning an proper arrangement of copies (hereinafter referred to as caches) of data which are frequently retrieved so as to decentralize retrieval processes in proportion to an increase in the data transfer amount over a network. Although an attempt has also been made to automate the selection of an arrangement of caches, as surveyed in a case study, for example, "Comparative Models of the File Assignment Problem", by L. W. Dowdy and D. V. Foster, Computing Surveys, Vol. 14, No.2, June 1982, such a proposal still remains conceptual.